Smith in New York” would be unlikely to contain enough information to give away the subject’s identity. If the patient had a less common name and lived in a small city, however, it would probably count as PII, since it would be easy to deduce who the subject was. Protected health information known as PHI has become a common part of healthcare jargon. PHI’s origin comes from the Privacy Rule which was proposed in 1999 and finalized three years later in 2002.
The study also found that more than 20% of those organizations saw increased patient mortality rates as a result of cyberattacks, mostly due to procedure and test delays. PHI, or protected health information, is any type of health information, like physical or electronic health records, medical bills, and lab test results, that has individual identifiers . The confidentiality requirements surrounding PHI are very strict and violation of these can lead to severe legal consequences.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology , personally identifiable information “is not created equal” and should only be collected if absolutely necessary in order to minimize the level of impact should a breach occur. For example, a telephone number can identify a group of people, but a social security number can identify an individual. They are both PII but will have different consequences to the individual if they are obtained.
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HIPAA uses the term Protected Health Information to refer to protected data, but the concept is very similar to the term Personally Identifiable Information , which is used in other compliance regimes. Understanding how PII and PHI overlap can help organizations unify compliance efforts across regimes, reducing the risk, cost and complexity of keeping data safe. Be aware that the HIPAA Privacy rule protects individually identifiable health information of deceased individuals for 50 years following the date of death. If the research will include any identifiers linked to living persons or involves accessing death records maintained by the State Registrar, local registrars, or county recorders, the project must be approved in advance. The course is designed to prepare DOD and other Federal employees to recognize the importance of PII, to identify what PII is, and why it is important to protect PII. The Federal government requires the collection and maintenance of PII so as to govern efficiently.